Today, we’ll look at another widely used form of structured data markup, Microformats.

Microformats is an initiative launched in 2005 by the web development community to give more semantic meaning to HTML. Like subsequent structured data markup conventions, microformats were designed to be human readable first, and machine readable second. Microformats was designed to add more clarity and fidelity to the content of web pages, and to be easy to use by anyone who already knows HTML and CSS.

Common uses for microformats include contact information, calendars, or reviews. Facebook began marking up events and calendars with microformats a couple of years ago, in addition to using their own OpenGraph data.

Metadata is data that describes other data. Though the ideas are old, the implementation of metadata has primarily been in the last five years. Though each method is a little different, each is structured markup language (like HTML) that helps computers better identify and classify what things are.

Metadata helps give better meaning to web pages. Search engines are able to parse and classify the information found in metadata. This is of some benefit to search ranking, but how much is not known.

One of the most widely used metadata structures is Schema.org, which was a joint initiative launched by Google, Bing, and Yahoo in 2011.

Schema markup is what enables rich snippets in Google search results. Those are the little pictures next to certain search results, like recipes.

If you work in web design or development, it’s inevitable that you’ll get inquiries for a project that is not a good fit for your skills. Perhaps the client budget doesn’t match with your project range. Maybe the client needs skills that are a different specialty than what you deal in. Maybe you’re just booked solid, and the project has a timeline that won’t fit.

What do you do?

My philosophy is that you should provide value to people, even if they don’t become your clients — even if you’re not going to work with them. There’s a few reasons for this.

Call to action buttons are exactly what they sound like — buttons on forms that entice your customers to take action. CTAs are usually succinct messages like Subscribe on an email newsletter sign-up, or Buy Now on an online shopping cart.

Here are some very simple best practices for these calls-to-action that allow you get better conversions.